Conservatives & Tea Partiers To Congress: Cut Defense Spending

It looks like some conservatives and Tea Partiers are ready to go after a sacred cow of Republican politics.

A letter addressed to incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), posted at FreedomWorks, one of the nation’s most influential tea party umbrella groups, is urging the Republican leaders to consider cutting defense spending.The letter reads:

Department of Defense spending, in particular, has been provided protected status that has isolated it from serious scrutiny and allowed the Pentagon to waste billions in taxpayer money. A new Congress, with a clear mandate to cut spending and the size of government, should signal its fiscal resolve by proposing cuts for all federal spending.

The letter is signed by more than a dozen conservatives, including Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks, Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity, and Grover Norquist. They lash out at rising defense costs, and suggest that they be scaled back.

Under President Bush, military spending averaged 3.9 percent of GDP. Under President Obama, it has averaged 4.9 percent a full percentage point higher. It is outrageous to assume spending under the president who launched the War on Terror, started the Department of Homeland Security and began the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is not sufficient for even the most hawkish member of Congress.

Their message concludes by saying, “As we enter a new Congress and search for ways to significantly decrease the size of government, we call on you to lead the crusade for a new era of responsibility — one that knows no sacred cows.”